Have anyone tried Freelancing jobs before?

I'm asking if anyone tried the Freelancing jobs before?, just was searching on jobs i can do online, and get paid from, and got the website " WWW.freelancer.com ", where you can find engineering jobs there, you can do, and get paid against doing it, but in a way is explained in the website, so here is my question:

1- is that True?, online engineering jobs?
2- is the freelancer.com a website to trust?
3- Do you know any other websites like freelancer, to work with?, i mean trusted?

I have never used freelancer.com, although I have used a couple of other sites for finding freelance work (Innocentive, guru.com, among others). As far as "trusted", the trust is between you and the person posting the job. You won't get rich from this approach- most jobs seem to go to the low bidder...

Thank You cwarner7_11 and raajmath, for your care to reply, i would try even if lower bidds, as i am not employed now, so getting less money for me now is better than nothing.
Thanks also for the trusted websites you put crawner, i'll try them, but would like to know what are the freelancing jobs you did and how much was the pay?, if possible.

they suck both freelance elancer and the other one. They charge you % fee + on top of that you have to pay federal and state taxes not to mention you have to place bids and hope people pick you and the people who post the jobs have absolutely no idea what they want. this has been Disaster.

Yes it's a disaster. In our field of competencies, Mech Engineering, it's even worst. On one hand, many project scope have to be reworked entirely before something can be done with. A lot of them are completely surrealistic regarding cost, budget and delay and imply a lot of time, communication and psychology only to be put back on track.

On the other hand, nearly all the Freelancer are using hacked or non-licensed copies of CAD/FEA/CFD softwares to do jobs that definitively required an Industrial license. I have always wondered how the hell the CAD industry has managed to let her nose out of this mess since so many years.

Let me be clear, the formula is good and works great for other markets that don't need any expensive licenses or hardware to manufacture a product or deliver a service. A hub, easy to reach, accessible all over the web where small Industries and/or Individuals can met motivated entrepreneurs.

But without a strong and active policy to control what's going on, it will stay what it is today: a burlesque place where the loufoque and the most cynics practices meet.

How does this work in the US offering engineering services. You have to be a PE to offer engineering services to the general public. There is the corporate exemption but you have to be regular full time employee for that to apply.

As much as I like Freelancer, I think that the best freelance job board is XPlace. It has higher hourly rates than the majority of other online marketplaces, doesn't charge a commission from freelancers, and there are a lot of job opportunities (entry-level and more complex ones). An excellent website to make a freelance career!